Adam Werbach

Adam Werbach was once the youngest president of the Sierra Club, is on the board of Greenpeace International and is an environmental consultant and the founder and CEO of the Saatchi & Saatchi S, a green PR and consulting firm he began under the name Act Now. Werbach's clients include Wal-Mart and he has been accused of selling out and greenwashing by critics such as John Sellers and Barbara Dudley.

Selling Out to Saatchi & Saatchi S
On January 31, 2008, FastCompany.com reported: "Those still on the fence about the sellout status of our September coverboy Adam Werbach--the youngest ever Sierra Club president who's now doing sustainability work for Wal-Mart--are about to be taken for another surprise twist. This morning Werbach announced that his San Francisco sustainability consultancy, Act Now, has been scooped up by none other than the lovemark-man himself: Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts. The new company, called Saatchi & Saatchi S, in which Werbach will remain CEO, plans on bringing sustainability to the ad agency's clients, which include A-listers like P&G, Toyota, and Visa.

Act Now and Wal-Mart
According to its website, "The Personal Sustainability Project (or “PSP”) was designed by Act Now to educate Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club employees, or Associates, on sustainability in a meaningful way to improve their health and well being, foster widespread community engagement and drive cultural change throughout the organization. ... Act Now’s challenge was to develop a communications strategy as novel and engaging as the PSP program itself."

Adam Werbach's Clients
On December 31, 2007 clients listed on its website included the following:


 * Allianz
 * Amnesty International
 * Autodesk
 * CARE
 * Center for American Progress
 * Cisco Systems
 * Columbia Records
 * dropping knowledge
 * General Mills
 * General Service Foundation
 * Gill Foundation
 * Goldman Environmental Prize
 * Kaiser Permanente
 * Method
 * Nathan Cummings Foundation
 * National Wildlife Federation
 * Procter & Gamble
 * Rockefeller Brothers Foundation
 * RTC
 * Sierra Club
 * Techdata
 * Wal-Mart
 * World Wildlife Fund

Contact Information
Adam Werbach, Global Chief Exectutive Officer Saatchi & Saatchi S 501 York Street San Francisco, California 94110 Phone: 415-871-2002 Fax: 415-871-2011 Email: awerbach AT saatchis.com

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Act Now
 * Wal-Mart Stores
 * Breakthrough Institute (Werbach's on the Advisory Board; his Saatchi & Saatchi S affiliation is not mentioned )

Articles by Werbach
Put Consumers and Shoppers at the Center of the Sustainability: Dialogue to Really Save the World"], Advertising Age, May 5, 2008.
 * Adam Werbach, [http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=126770 "Seeing Green? Maybe It's Time to Go Blue

General Articles

 * Michael Barbaro, Wal-Mart Effort on Health and Environment Is Seen, New York Times, June 22, 2006.
 * Amanda Witherell, Is Wal-Mart Going Green or Just Greenwashing? Corporation hires former Sierra Club president to polish its image, San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 16, 2006.
 * Cliff Schecter, Adam Werbach: Wal-Mart's New Fraud Salesman, Huffington Post, August 20, 2007
 * Danielle Sacks, Working With the Enemy: Once the youngest president of the Sierra Club, Adam Werbach used to call Wal-Mart toxic. Now the company is his biggest client, Fast Company, September, 2007.